Kings And Shadows
by Aphina
Summary: Mac reflects on the position Reed has taken in his life. Oneshot.


**AN: This is another one of those little one shots. I have no idea where they're coming from. A special thanks to Sparkycsi for being the best beta a girl could ask for.**

Kings and Shadows

It had started over a year ago when Stella had told him she was being followed. He'd become protective of her since the incident with Frankie. Their job was dangerous day in and day out and sometimes the monsters followed you home.

The team had seen enough of their share of monsters to last a life time, yet they pressed on, they kept going no matter the cost to them selves. Social lives, friends, lovers became lost in the tidal wave of violence that encased the city every day. The only way to combat it was to make a difference. An amends, if you will, against the darkness.

He told the team everyone should have something outside the lab, a light that could brighten the darkest day, something to go home to.

He'd lost his the day the Twin Towers fell and he'd never managed to regain it since. There was always a piece of him missing. The beach ball filled with Claire's breath used to lay in the cupboard, he'd been afraid to move it at first. Afraid to let go, letting the air out would be admitting that she was actually gone and admitting that would tear his heart inside out all over again.

Eventually, he'd learned to let go and one night standing outside of Ground Zero he'd taken the beach ball and released Claire's final breath from its prison. His heart had become lighter after that. He'd managed to let go and he was proud.

It was not long after that life had thrown him a curve ball. Concerned for his closet friend, he had managed to pin her would be stalker to the sidewalk and yank off that yellow hood. He'd recognize those eyes anywhere. The eyes of his dead wife were staring back at him as the kid began to talk.

He'd sat Reed down in a diner that night and bought him a soda and they began to talk about Claire. It had been hard, he hadn't talked about Claire in years, not properly and not the way he was talking to the kid. At the end of the night, he'd given Reed his card and told him to call.

It wasn't the call that had frightened Mac Taylor; it was the sound of Reed's voice after his friend had been killed in what they had thought at the time was a bizarre cult ritual. Fear wasn't an emotion he was accustomed to, he felt it for his team, they were his adopted family, but somewhere along the line the kid had taken a place in Mac's heart, and Mac couldn't pinpoint the exact moment that he'd decided to let Reed in.

It had stopped becoming about what Claire would have wanted and instead became something Mac as himself had wanted to do. He was responsible for the kid he felt.

So when Mac had rushed over and had seen the state of Reed's face and the way he was holding himself up right, he should have expected the cold determination and red hot anger that were bubbling under his skin.

Reed was exactly like his mother, his hair was the same, and as Mac watched him hold a cool can against his face, soothing the bruising that marred it, he knew he was as tough as Claire had been.

The kid was smart too, the first thing he'd done after the masked thug had beaten him was call Mac; he hadn't touched a thing. He'd known to preserve the evidence, he hadn't been scared into silence as he was supposed to be and Mac found himself admiring that.

It was days later that Mac had realized just exactly what place Reed had adopted in his heart.

The pain was still as raw as it had ever been when Reed had asked about Claire's grave. It had almost broken Mac's heart knowing that he couldn't give the kid what he himself craved. There would be no closure for the two of them, there was nothing but grief.

It was Reed that reached out. Mac found himself feeling awkward and unsure in the first few seconds. Yet he found himself overwhelmed with an emotion he thought he'd reserved only for a certain set of people. It was at that moment, with Reed's tears soaking through to his shoulder that Mac Taylor realised that Reed Garrett was now part of the family.


End file.
